by Al Ewing
Still, John could sleep a little sounder now.
Doc was still wearing the shirt. It peeked out from the open lab coat - a light blue t-shirt with a yellow lightning bolt pointing down and to the left. The symbol of the Resistance against McCarthy, back in '54. It still meant something, even now. A lot of people flew it from office buildings instead of the old flag, although the stars and stripes still got wheeled out on state occasions.
John had been right. Doc's job wasn't exploring lost continents or fighting insane scientists. It was just standing up and doing the right thing, and being seen to do it. Because there were a lot of folks who didn't, and the more of those there were, the more the average Joe might start thinking he didn't have a chance, that the only way to play the game and win was to play it with no rules at all, golden or otherwise. Screw the little guy, stamp him down. Hate the different ones. Why not? They're Them and you're Us and spitting on them might make you more Us, might win you some power. Tell any lie that'll serve your purpose, print them and distribute them to the people while swearing you only speak truth. Believe what you're told without question, or shrug, because what can you do? What can anybody do? The bastards run the world, we just have to live in it. What can you do?
Keep thinking that way and soon you're looking in the paper at an article that says they're building a camp on the edge of town for all the people who are bad for the country, or bad for the company, there's no real difference anyway, and just keep looking the other way a little longer, friends, just keep nodding along, just keep shrugging, whatever, you're not in danger, you're one of Us and nobody's ever going to come for you, pal. Promise.
It couldn't happen here, is what we're saying.
Would we lie to you?
Doc knew where that road ended. He'd seen it with his own eyes.
So he wore his beliefs on his chest, and he always tried to do the right thing, and when he needed to stand up, he stood up. And because he was who he was, everybody saw it. And maybe someone took a look at him and realised that they could question what they heard, or they could step in when they saw something bad happening, or they could just try and treat people just a little better. Maybe just one person that day looked at him and thought: I should start trying.
That was Doc Thunder's job.
Right now, part of that job was to help the police solve a murder.
"The shooting in Japantown?"
Maya's voice. Entering the lab unusually early. Doc nodded, flashing her a brief, tight smile.
"A gang member, executed in the street. There was a Blood-Spider card left on the body. Inspector West wanted me to check if the forensics matched his pattern." He sighed. "And they do."
Maya nodded, frowning. "Shooting children." She shuddered. "Are they any closer to catching him?"
Doc shook his head. "Unfortunately, a lot of the police don't want him caught. A lot of the citizenry feels the same. They see him as being on their side - cutting through the red tape, even. You know he shot a rabbi last night?"
Maya gasped. "That's monstrous."
"They found pictures of naked children in his home. A lot of the police are saying the Blood-Spider should get a medal." He rubbed his temples. "That's the problem, Maya. The people whose job it is to arrest him don't want to arrest him. The only reason Easton wants him off the streets is because... well, you know his foster father was a vigilante?"
Maya nodded. "The Blue Ghost. You worked with him occasionally. I remember you telling me."
"He never took a life. He was shot up more times than I can remember because he refused to. The man had an almost inhuman capacity for taking punishment, but eventually he had to retire." Doc looked into the microscope, double-checking the scratches on the shell cases. "He was murdered three years ago, just before Lars Lomax died. Someone strangled him and dropped him off a pier. By the time the body was found, it had been underwater for weeks. They only identified it as Danny Coltrane with dental records. Any clues had been wiped out." Doc shook his head. "Not pretty. The Blood-Spider popped up soon after that, and, well, I think Easton feels as if he lost his father only to have him replaced by someone who defiled his father's memory." He shook his head again, sadly. "I can't really disagree with him. I don't see killing as ever being necessary."
Maya raised an eyebrow. "Even for a child molester?"
"The man deserved a day in court." He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose as if to stave off a headache. "You didn't get up this early to debate moral philosophy, though, did you?"
"No." Maya sighed, then looked Doc in the eye. "I had a dream. I can't remember all of it, but... I dreamt about a man in a red mask, standing over someone I loved. Ready to kill. Perhaps having killed already." She paused. "You know I wouldn't tell you if I didn't think..."
"It's coming true. Say no more." Doc frowned. "A red mask."
Maya handed over the paper. "And I think this might be involved somehow."
"Let me see that." Doc took hold of the paper, scanning the article.
Almost immediately, he went white.
"Donner. Heinrich Donner. My God." His voice shook. A bead of cold sweat trickled from his forehead down his cheek. Then he looked up at her, and his eyes burned with a cold, limitless fury.
"Get Monk in here. Now."
He scowled.
"I've got a job for him."
Chapter Three
The Case of The Man Who Died Twice
Even in the United Socialist States of America, the old-fashioned Gentlemen's Club was still an indicator of social status among the idle rich.
There was the Union Club, the oldest but no longer the grandest; the Cornell Club; the Down Town Association, although it increasingly attracted beatniks, pop artists and generally quite the wrong sort of people; and The Leash, which allowed female as well as male applicants, although the stringent rules of membership put off many.
The Jameson Club was perhaps the most exclusive of them all. A new member, upon applying to the club, would be asked for references from no less than five senior members. Having produced these, he would be allowed one visit to one of the lesser smoking rooms, where he would be jovially, but thoroughly, interrogated by the Club President or one of the deputies to determine whether he was of the calibre required for membership. Should a prospective member meet the high standards required, there would then be a probationary period of one year, during which time the new recruit could be dismissed from the club without warning and for the smallest social infraction.
These iron laws kept the Jameson Club satisfyingly free of the riff-raff and nouveau riche who infested other, lesser, gentlemen's establishments like a plague of cockroaches. It also meant that the average member was at least forty years old, if not fifty.
Parker Crane was not the average member.
Where most members of the Jameson Club had soft, doughy faces, with great jowls and wrinkled brows, worn from the countless demands made of New York's elite, Parker Crane's face was thin and angular, with a large nose that seemed from some angles almost like the beak of a predatory bird. He was a young man, no older than thirty, and it was generally agreed in the society pages that his sharp features and severe grey eyes, as well as his air of coldness and distance, lent him a powerful charisma. Many starlets and society beauties had fallen foul of the 'Crane effect', though he was careful not to allow his dalliances to sully the image of the Club. One must, after all, have priorities.
Crane had inherited most of his wealth from an uncle who had died - murdered by a burglar, according to the rumours - and was now a gentleman of leisure, dabbling in photography. It was one of those professions that allowed the independently wealthy to squander their time in its margins, and Crane was a noted presence in fashion-forward circles; the futurehead trend was slowly but surely giving way to pop and op-art creations informed by a return to the Warhol era. Warhol himself, in his old age, was consumed by the idea of inaugurating a new style, a basic, simple look combining jean trousers in denim with
a clean t-shirt and athletic plimsolls, perhaps with a workman's shirt over the top. This, he said, was the costume people would wear in the world he saw in his head.
"Imagine, uh, a world where everything was simple, where you could just clap your hands and, uh, light would appear. That's the basis of all this. What if you could make light without effort? We have so much machinery, so much industry, and I feel like, uh, in New York we're on the point of breaking through into a different aesthetic. Machinery without machinery."
He would talk for hours about the possibilities of his mental world. Restaurants where people ate flavoured foams and used liquid gases to create astonishing desserts. A means of recording all human information and calling it up at a moment's notice, so every man could have a whole library at his fingertips. A global telephone system, so there could be calls from New York to London, from London to Paris, as easily as calling across town.
"If, uh, we had all this, if we could do all this... what would it look like? That's where all my work is headed. To try and break into this other world, this dream world, to try and replicate it and bring it here so, uh, so I can live in it."
The newspapers called it dreampunk.
Crane was a presence on the edges of Warhol's Factory, often featured in fashion magazines on either side of the camera, although his work was competent at best. Mostly, those in the know were intrigued less by his talent as a photographer and more by his wealth and status, and the dichotomy he represented - on the one hand, the cold, severe traditionalist, the youngest member of the Jameson Club, and on the other, the young photographer with a model on each arm and an eye for the future of fashion. The usual line taken by gossip columnists was that Parker Crane had 'a secret identity'.
They could not have been more right.
"Master Parker?"
Jonah was a tall, deferential man with an impeccably trimmed toothbrush moustache. As majordomo of the Jameson Club, he commanded an army of servants and maids whose function was to be silent and invisible until they could be of service, and then to simply appear, as if by magic, without being asked or even looked for. To speak to Crane in person, instead of sending a servant for the task, was a mark of supreme respect, and Crane took it as such. He put down the fashion spread he was reading and gave Jonah his full attention.
"Ms. Lang left a message just now enquiring as to whether you would be free to join her for coffee at the Rockefeller at noon, Sir." He pronounced 'Rockefeller' with the slightest inflection of disapproval.
Crane nodded. Marlene Lang was a model he'd been seeing on and off for some time, in between other conquests. She was easily bored and favoured open relationships, so the arrangement suited her enough that she kept in touch. Currently, they were enjoying some time apart, but Crane was certain this meeting was about business rather than pleasure. The mention of the Rockefeller was a signal. It was a tourist spot, quite beyond the pale. The only reason Marlene would go there would be to discuss her 'hobby', as she put it.
Crane was one of the few who knew that Marlene Lang was a member of the Spider's Web.
The Blood-Spider's network of operatives numbered around twenty people, stretching over the whole of New York and reaching into every corner of society. Few knew about the Spider's Web, and those who did spoke of it in hushed, reverential tones, mindful of the importance of secrecy in their great work. Marlene was more open about it than many, but the Blood-Spider was willing to tolerate her idiosyncrasies for the sake of her driving skills.
Her father had been a mechanic, one of the first to combine the raw power of the traction engines and the intricate steam-hydraulics that drove the robots of Europe into a new kind of motor vehicle. The automobile was a young science, but great strides were being made - enough to get the Blood-Spider interested in owning an auto and employing someone to drive it. Having learned to drive the new vehicles almost as soon as they'd been invented, Marlene was a natural choice.
"I'm his personal chauffeur," Marlene had cooed to Crane once, her blonde hair spilling onto his shoulder as they shared a post-coital Gauloises. "It's ever so thrilling. You should see how he makes me dress."
Crane had raised an eyebrow, drawing on the cigarette for a moment before passing it along. "Why on Earth would the Blood-Spider need an auto? They're so unwieldy. They still haven't found a way to fit a decent boiler and furnace into the damned things. You can't get more than five miles in one, and god help you if you're idling at a stop-signal, you'll end up stuck there forever. Autos are a passing fad. Strictly for hobbyists."
"Not this one. The Silver Ghost, I call it. Goes like a bullet - top speed of almost forty miles per hour, once it's warmed up."
Crane had snorted - "Little liar!" - grabbed hold of her wrist and yanked her to the side, spilling her over his lap, her cigarette nearly burning a hole in the silk sheets as he brought the palm of his hand down against her quivering derrière. Afterwards, she'd wiggled coquettishly on his lap, smiling a secret little smile of her own. A smile with a hint of the devil in it.
She was wearing the same smile now as she waited, sipping her espresso, surrounded by the tourists excitedly discussing their visit to the viewing deck. Nobody would be listening to them. She could speak freely.
She pushed a large cappuccino at him as he sat down, which he ignored. "You know my coffee by now, surely?"
"They don't sell it here. I wouldn't even call mine an espresso, frankly." She smirked, enjoying his stiffness in this setting. She was dressed impeccably; a black and white op-art top that hurt the eyes if you looked too long, with a jet black pencil skirt and stilettos to match. Such an outfit should have stuck out like a sore thumb here, among these awful people, but somehow she managed to blend in.
"I have a message for our mutual friend," she breathed, letting the words hang deliciously on her tongue. Crane frowned. She was entirely too much in love with her role, but he was prepared to tolerate it.
"By which you mean the Blood-Spider. Why not tell him directly?"
She pouted. "You know I can't, darling. He contacts me, not the other way around. The only way I know to contact him is through you. The human mail drop." She smirked, taking another sip of the not-quite-espresso. "Do you think he's trying to keep our relationship alive?"
"Such as it is. Still sleeping with that artist?"
She smiled. "He bored me. Détourned symbols are so very yesterday. How do you take something seriously when every scruffy teenager can do it? Let him play with his futurehead friends." She finished her coffee, looking through lowered lashes at the lumpen proletariats milling around their table. "No, the most fabulous thing to do now is believe in something utterly and completely, without restraint."
"Like Warhol? He's going senile." Crane's lip curled, approaching a sneer. He had little time for dreampunk.
"Like the war on crime, darling." Her green eyes flashed dangerously as her smirk widened.
Crane nodded. He was bored of this game. "Give me the message. I'll see that it gets to him."
"If he reads the paper, he has it already. That industrialist everyone thought was dead - Heinrich Donner. He's turned up again."
"Donner's alive?" Crane's eyes narrowed. Why hadn't he heard about this?
"Not quite. Stabbed through the heart, poor man. With a sword. It's very unusual. The sort of thing you-know-who might be interested in."
Crane frowned, thinking for a long moment, then stood. "Go home. Wait by the phone. He'll want to get moving at sunset, no later." Absently, he pulled out fifty dollars and left it on the table.
Marlene raised an eyebrow. "You'll give the waitress a heart attack. Or is that for me?"
"I'm sure you'll think of a way to earn it." He nodded a cursory goodbye, then turned away.
"It's a date." Marlene smiled, then snapped her fingers at the waitress for a second cup.
Jonah greeted Crane on his return with a barely-perceptible raised eyebrow. Crane checked his pocket-watch, noting that enough time had passed to allow him some
plausible deniability with Marlene, then gave Jonah the slightest of nods.
Jonah took a small copper key from his pocket and moved to unlock the door to the lower library.
In the Jameson Club, there were two libraries. The upper library was one of the club's great treasures - a repository of famous first editions culled from private collections, including a folio of Marlowe's Faustus Redeemed and the original manuscript for Edwin Drood, complete with the famous epilogue. Had the Jameson Club been a museum, visitors would have flocked to see such exhibits. As it was, most of the members saw these priceless artefacts of literary history only as decorative touches, adding a touch of class to the room where they went to do the daily crossword. The books simply sat and looked pretty, in the manner of a trophy wife or a set of elephant's tusks.
The lower library, meanwhile, was all but forgotten. While there were several first editions stored there, they were the kind of thing you'd find on the bookshelves of any dedicated collector with money to spend, and thus their value as items of decadence was next to worthless. Since the building of the upper library, the room had fallen into disuse, and now it was used as a junk room by the serving staff, a place of dust, cobwebs and bric-a-brac, forgotten by all. Crane was the only member who ever bothered to go inside, and if the other members noticed, they dismissed it as a minor eccentricity. If Crane wanted to poke around amongst piles of dusty old ephemera, they thought, then it was his business.
Surely there was no harm in it.
In one corner of the lower library, underneath a bust of Catullus, there was a locked trunk, to which Parker Crane had the only key.
Inside the trunk, there were three black slouch hats, two black trenchcoats, three pairs of black shirts and slacks, five pairs of strangely-patterned black rubber gloves, three pairs of black shoes with the same intricate pattern on their soles and one pair of black automatic pistols, which were kept in perfect condition.